Law Firm Settles for $4 Million with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court

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On Tuesday, Pennsylvania  Supreme Court Chief Justice, Ron Castille said the law firm  of Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell & Hippel has settled the lawsuit brought against it by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court over the law firm’s role in the scandal involving the new family court building.

The news of the settlement was announced by Castille during his speech at the annual meeting of the Philadelphia Bar Association.

The lawsuit, which has now been settled for a sum of $ 4 million, had originally been filed in 2011 after it was found that former Obermayer partner Jeffrey B. Rotwitt had misled the court system and had caused the court to pay millions in unnecessary fees for the new Family Court building.

  

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Rotwitt was paid to make a deal for a new Family Court building at 15^th Arch Streets, Rotwitt, acting as the public representative, but it was later found that the  Rotwitt himself was 50 percent owner of the developer firm, ultimately selected by him for the project.

When the Inquirer exposed the story depicting Rotwitt’s conflicting roles, the deal was dissolved and public bids were held. After public bids, the cost of the project was found to be $140 million, $60 million less than Rotwitt’s original estimate of $200 million.

The $4 million settlement money would go towards furnishings of the new Family Court building. However, Rotwitt maintained to the end that he had never intended or tried to conceal his role as co-developer of the project from anyone.

It was perfectly alright, and the deal was even personally supervised by Chief Justice Castille, and nobody had noticed anything out of the ordinary, until  Inquirer began crying foul.